Inferential Genealogy Study Group in 2nd Life – Search Broadly #5

Two things are going on here. 1) we are walking out the door to visit The National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg PA and 2) finding a Source in an Online Family Tree on a website that I haven’t visited before.

The source read:

The First and Second Maryland Infantry, C.S.A., Robert J. Drive, Jr., (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books), 444.

So, I must be doing something right. Unplanned trip to his museum, where, as it turns out, the 1st Maryland Infantry, CSA is having an Encampment the same day, and finding a potential link back to me.

In the material on the website, it says “And third, John Eager Howard‘s son James had two sons in the regiment. James McHenry Howard, another lawyer, also served on Gen. Elzey’s staff. DAVID RIDGELY HOWARD was wounded at Gettysburg, spent time in hospitals, and was wounded again at the battle of Weldon R.R. in August of 1864 before being retired as invalid.

James McHenry, James, John Eager were listed in the only tree. But, what caught my eye was that David Ridgely Howard was wounded at Gettysburg and later at Weldon R.R.

More questions. Why couldn’t I find David Ridgely Howard in the Civil War Records? Will have to go back there and look. I would have thought that being wounded twice and “retired as invalid” would have resulted in some paperwork in the Civil War Pension files.

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Well, I can guess. The Federal pensions were only for Northern soldiers, not those who went South. Some Southern states made their own pensions for their veterans, but since Maryland never seceded, they may not have ever done so.

D. Ridgely Howard was C.S.A., so I you could be right. I just don’t know that (yet). That is one reason that I am “putting this out there”. I haven’t looked into these types of records today, to know what I might or might not find.

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About this Blog

The purpose of this Blog has changed over time. What started out to be an online version of some old Worthington Descendant Newsletters.
It has become a way to journal about my adventure into Family History, sometimes called Genealogy.
The change for me is more about finding out the stories behind the names and dates that I find about the people I find in my research.